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What game could have taken the title from WoW?
Stardimmer
Member Posts: 12
With just the right changes, what game could have taken over as number one, and why?
What game would you choose and what changes would you make before sending it back in time to its launch date?
Comments
Everquest 2 had the potential. The game was, IMO, substantially better than WoW at release. Sure, it had it's problems, but it wasn't all bad. The biggest problem EQ2 had was accessibility. It was more difficult than WoW, hands down. The advancement system of Scout > Rogue > Brigand/Swashbuckler (as an example) was "confusing" for some people.
EQ2 was released slightly too early. If they would have made it a little easier and had an extra month or two of beta, they might have been the "WoW".
But, like most games, they released too early because of the money guys said so.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
SWG or SWTOR are likely the only two that could have done it. No other game has the fan base.
The thing that Blizzard has over other MMORPG's is the legions of fans. Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft players all on Bnet jumping over helped WoW tremendously. The polish and playability of WoW helped retain and grow the popularity.
WoW's playerbase is usually not interested in other MMORPGs. However, over the last 7-8 years I played WoW, there was two games that really stood out, that got a lot of hype from WoW players.
Warhammer Online was the first one. A lot of the WoW PvPers were talking about this game. There were guilds forming based on Battlegroup, server, and arena rating, ready to roll together in WAR. People were pretty pumped. Even the top PvE guilds in WoW at the time were looking forward to Warhammer, due to being a little tired of the raiding in the burning crusade. I remember specifically the guild leader of Nihilim saying that his guild was going to give it a shot. Too bad the game was shit.
The second one was SWTOR. It didn't have as much hype as Warhammer Online did, but it still had a lot of WoW's population interested. The main reason was that Bioware was going to be launching it, and Bioware could do no wrong, right? People were pretty tired of Cata at this point, and even WoW in general had been around for 6-7 years; thus people were looking for something new. It got to the point where, during the latest world first races in WoW, the raiders were talking about playing SWTOR while defeating the bosses. But unfortunately, SWTOR turned out to be shit as well.
There are were really only two contenders that could have beat WoW back when it released in 2004.
1. Lineage II - They already had two million subs in Asia but the game was relatively unpopular in the Western market. Main reason was Korean style grind. It literally took a year of grinding to get to end game. Then the bots took over just about the time WoW was releasing so there was pretty big exodus. If NCsoft would have compromised on the grind it would have been a contender to dethrone WoW. There was at one time 100k subscribers to a private server called Lineage II Extreme that had 1000% XP gain. Not compromising on the XP curve has to be one of the worst game design decisions ever made.
2. Everquest 2 - Had decent following before release with all the players who played EQ1 over the years and had very solid world design and game play. What killed EQ2 though was back end graphics decisions. SoE chose to use a revamped engine they built Star War Galaxies with. This engine had two major problems with EQ2. First it pretty much ignored video cards and did all the heavy lifting on the CPU. Second it would only use one core on the CPU. If anyone deserves a double facepalm here it is SoE. The more tech savy users figured out you could manually set the affinity to 2 cores but SoE considered that hacking and quickly disabled the feature. The result is the game ran terrible on every PC and this pretty much killed mass market appeal. If SoE picked a different engine EQ2 could have given WoW a run for its money even if they ultimately didn't dethrone them.
Not sure if any game could haven taken the throne. Most of wow's success came from blizzards outstanding reputation and the fan bases of warcraft, starcraft and diablo2 in addition to a decent game and a social effect(suddenly it was cool to play wow and once some members of a grouped played the game it didn't took long until all of them joined the game).
Right now i can't think of any company that has a similar reputation to come even close to wow. Similar for IP's as Star Wars is probably the only one that could have been possible(there are a few others but at least for me they are ot realy suited for an mmorpg).
Completely agree, especially about Warhammer. I remember we used to be sitting in Org waiting to get together raids or join BG's and all we would talk about was the Warhammer videos. How they could release that game knowing they had that lag issue is beyond me.... They had a real shot at taking the crown from WOW.
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I also concur.Warhammer could have been huge if they hadn't dropped the ball on many fronts and hadn't lacked a vision of where to take the game after launch.So much potential squandered there.
Any game, if made good enough.
Even though right timing and Blizzard's fanbase helped WoW, WoW beat the others because at the time it launched it was the best. Many good games have launched since then, but no game that would at launch have been the best.
I honestly believe that FFXI should take over the title. The game really immerses you into the Final Fantasy world and feels alive. Unfortunately it has a subscription fee and many gamers are now leaving that because there are more and more quality F2P games to play.
FFXI is damn good.
If Everquest Next doesn't also change its mind and decide to have a subscription fee, I expect it to take the throne. After all this time. Well done World of Warcraft.
I think if SWTOR had come out at the same time as WoW, it would have dominated, even with its issues.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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You are kidding me right? Everquest 2 is far too easy...
WoW was not even challanging (my 10 year old nephew maxed the game out in 3 weeks after launch). If you want easier than EQ2 try a single player RPG and get the cheat codes.
I played WoW the first two weeks it launched. The community was the worst community in any MMO I ever played (until Aion EU servers) and I have been playing MMORPGs since March 1999 (Everquest 1), and MUDs prior. Should have had under 21 and over 21 servers tbh....
I have beta'd most every MMORPG since 1999. Everquest as bad as the state it is in (1- 95 / 320 AAs in 3 days) it is the best thing out there STILL (I am hoping ESO or WoD pique my interest).
maybe it had. I didnt play enough to aggree with you. But i did play enough to believe it wouldnt go anywhere with that horrible engine.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/funcom-reveals-record-age-of-conan-pre-orders
*no rails
*open world
*game for adults (like they promised) which means lots of things.
They had it they blew it.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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WoW was so huge because Blizzard had a huge online gaming community already. This is the advantage most other games will never have.
If say CoD made a MMO it would stomp Planetside 2 simply because it's online base is huge already. That's if the game isn't a total failure.
You are kidding right?, I mean with so much experiance you do know for a fact that EQ2 was never a game for beginners in the MMORPG scene, it was overwelming, too complicated. Again for a veteran player of MMORPG's it obviously was not hard but on the other hand still challenging.
WoW had a low entry level for new players something EQ2 didn't have, also EQ2 was allot more hardware demanding then World of Warcraft. Also Internet was just beginning to become mainstream which meant allot of new people onto the net that might have been gamers but never online so again the crop of MMORPG we already had where very hardware demanding, those of us who where gaming online since our 56k modems already knew online games where more demanding there for often had the right or atleast proper hardware to play hardware extensive games.
As for what game could have taken the tittle from WoW I would say none, unless all current themepark game would have been released at the same time or close to WoW with similar hardware demands to play the game. And then we might have had a VS.
I'd say Everquest 2 was pretty much the only one that could. Both came out around the same time that managed to be the prime time for attempting to push on an MMO audience. It would involve simplifying the game mostly to a point that its a lot easier to pick up and play, of course NOT going with wow's route of also making the game a joke to play which we see MMo developers realizing more and more that casuals do NOT want despite what they think.
So yeah... EQ2 but wow's success was primary for when it was released more then anything. Newer games that were better then wow just didn't have that nostaligia and stronghold on people to really get that attention they deserve.
well i can name one game that will pass about 7 million units sold in less than 2 years once it is released globally. it'd make this place go berserk so i won't say, but it will end up selling near as much. and it is already better reviewed.
I agree. Both launched at ideal times in WoW's history, both are mythical IPs, and both were marketed very well. They both failed on what actually mattered as well, the game itself.
These are my picks too.
It all came down to gameplay:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Any decent game that marketed more than blizzard (which is impossible).
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit